We had a very, very lazy morning. We’d slept with our doors open to the forest and didn’t see any reason to hurry out of bed. We watched cars come and go along the dirt road and even spotted a few mountain bikers. Upon looking at my trail maps, I discovered we were parked right in the middle of a trail network which I might have to take advantage of. Not today though, I was grossly hungover and Dan wasn’t any different. We were both dizzy and groggy from the spirits we’d drunk last night.
When we finally got ourselves up, we didn’t actually leave the van except to go to the bathroom. We took it very slow, drinking a bunch of water before we got started on an egg, bacon and pancake breakfast. A good go-to, especially when our heads hurt so much. I blogged while Dan cooked and we both perked up when we saw a National Forest vehicle drive by us on the road. He slowed down, but didn’t bother us. “You’d better keep driving,” we thought. Ten minutes later, he came back the other way. This time he stopped right by the sign that said camping wasn’t allowed where we were between March and August. He looked over and obviously saw us but we carried on as if we were in the right. Cleo was also outside doing a perimeter check. He moved on eventually, deciding it wasn’t worth the effort. Ha ha, dirtbags win.
After breakfast, we were both feeling less queasy, but not fully recovered. Still not ready to face anything outside of camp, we played a round of cards which Dan easily won before we emerged from the van properly. Dan decided that he was tiring of his hair sitting on his shoulders so he asked me to cut it. After a bit of debate, we decided it was worth the attempt even though I’d never cut hair like his before. I whipped out my scissors and hand-held mirror which had broken thanks to the heat but it was still useful enough. After a lot of combing and holding Dan’s hair, I made the first cut. It went alright from there since it’s so thick and curly at the end you couldn’t really tell if it wasn’t straight. By the time I was finished we were both covered in hair and brushed ourselves off. We both thought I did a pretty decent job!
With his new hairstyle, we broke camp and head up the mountain. I left my car at camp to stake it out and we took Dan’s. We were on the hunt for the disc golf course up at the Snowbowl. This is the place I’d been skiing with Kevin and Dan before but it looked nothing like it had back then. The carparks were near empty compared to the winter season and the mountain was overwhelmingly green. Cleo could sense some outside time was coming and could barely contain her excitement to get out into the tall grass and chase some shit. We didn’t really feel any different. We parked it, packed a small bag with water and trotted off up the mountain, Cleo in tow running free.
We found the start of the disc golf course and started practicing throws as we walked towards the first tee. Dan had played before and so was armed with two discs and some advice for me. I could throw a Frisbee so I wasn’t completely useless, but I didn’t have his flare. We walked around a while looking for the first tee. We could see a few baskets on the hill but no tee for Hole #1. Eventually we gave up and just started from where we stood, a little way up the hill looking out towards the chair lift.
It was all even after the first hole. We found the second tee ok, but after that we were lost again. The mapping of the course wasn’t the best since it was a combination of the old and new and we struggled to figure it out. I managed not to shame myself with my abilities but Dan clearly had more skill than I did. We made up a hole of our own when we couldn’t see the basket we were supposed to be aiming for. I was a few over par at this stage while Dan was still around par. Cleo happily followed us wherever we went, chasing things in the grass as she went and finding shade whenever we were at a standstill.
After our made up hole, we ended up at the top lodge which was open thanks to the scenic chairlift. We figured we’d stop in for a refreshing drink and see if we could find a map of the disc golf course. The place was abuzz with tourists and their dogs, lapping up the sun and getting on the chairlift to the top of the mountain. The restaurant and bar was busy serving everyone sitting at tables under umbrellas. It wasn’t set up anything like it had been in the winter, with reduced staff and table service instead of the serve-yourself deal. Since there were so many dogs around and we hadn’t brought Cleo’s leash, Dan stayed out of the crowds in the shade of the trees while I went inside to get what we needed. I got us a Coke and found a map of the course at guest services.
I met Dan back outside and he was thankful for the ice cold drink which we shared. He was busy getting centrefold shots of Cleo laying in the grass, she’s just so photogenic. We consulted the map and decided we should be able to manage the top half of the course. When a family walked by us asking about the course, we showed them the map and they went on their way starting the course where we planned to restart. We hung out in the grass a while longer to give them a head start then hit the reset button with Hole #16. It was a short hole, but tricky because the basket sat right next to a steep hill. We were both cautious on this one but made par. Next, we were on to Hole #7 and continued to the rest of the tees in the order intended.
There were a couple of really fun holes that crossed the ski runs. It meant that we spent a lot of time in the trees looking for discs, but we always found them in the end. When we were catching up to a couple, we slowed down a bit and eventually found them waiting for us at the top of the course. They let us go ahead of them since we were moving a little faster. It meant that they got to see Dan whip his disc far into the trees. We were at the high point of the course and aiming at a basket way down the hill. Dan had gone for distance but in doing so, his yellow disc got picked up by the wind and just kept sailing up, and up, and up! We moaned in disappointment, watching it drift further and further from the course and high into the trees. The other couple also watched on in horror. I took my throws, throwing them straight down a the ground to stop my disc flying and I managed to make it to the basket on par. Once I finished, we set about finding Dan’s disc. We didn’t hold the highest hopes but resolved to give it a good ten minute search. Turns out we didn’t even need that much. A few minutes later, Dan shouted out triumphantly that he’d found it.
And so, we continued. We played a fun hole through a narrow clearing of trees then kept criss-crossing the ski runs. The people on the chair lift watched on as we threw, missed, threw and hit the target, often laughing at our attempts. When we had the lodge in view, we were by the trees and aiming downhill again. Wanting to get the best flight angle, Dan went lefty and whipped his disc towards the far basket. Unfortunately, the same thing happened again and the disc was picked up by the wind and sent well over the trees. Oh shit. It was really bad this time. I followed with a few very cautious throws towards the basket then when I was close to the basket, we broke to do a hunt.
Our feet crunched on the sticks and logs beneath our feet as we searched for the yellow disc. The ferny ground cover did not help our cause, it would perfectly hide the disc. I searched left, Dan searched right and Cleo ran all over not helping at all. I looked up in the trees, down on the ground, but we had no idea really where it could have landed. We probably looked for a good twenty minutes until Dan called it. These discs cost about $7 normally and he remembered actually finding that one so it wasn’t a great loss. It was nearly 4pm and we were both starving for lunch anyway.
I finished the hole and with Dan’s two three-shot penalties for throwing his disc off the course, we ended up about even. I win off someone else’s mistakes again. We wandered down the hill, having a few throws of the disc as we went, but our afternoon of disc golf was done. As we approached Hole #16 for the second time (the hole with the basket next to the steep hill), I had an adhoc throw towards the basket. To the amazement of both of us, it sailed high into the sky then angled back and hit the basket with a vengeance. Woot! Woot! While it didn’t land in the tub, I was just happy to have had the satisfying sound of hitting the basket from a distance. I considered that my best shot of the day.
We bush-bashed across the various tiered carparks to get back to the Cabańa where she sat exactly where we’d left her. We were both excited for our burger lunch and Dan got straight to it after parking the car up in the shade. We enjoyed the shade and the cool breeze sitting halfway up the mountain and we devoured the burgers Dan cooked. The bread was delicious, the meat patties moist with melted cheese, tomatoes and lettuce, what a meal! By the time we were finished, we were ready to head back to camp. We contemplated going into town to check out some of the July 4th festivities, but decided we had tomorrow to do that so just went down the mountain and back into the forest.
The road in to our campsite seemed longer than yesterday and we found that we had the whole forest to ourselves. All of the campers we’d seen filling up the area yesterday had packed up and gone home. Back to our illegal site #10, my baby was nestled under the trees enjoying a nice rest. Dan parked it, this time with the rear doors facing away from the road and I moved my car away from the fire ring. We were set for the night. It was cool enough to warrant a jumper and a beanie which I put on straight away.
The sun was setting as Dan walked into the forest to use the bathroom. I collected firewood as he did so, admiring our cars in the rays of late sunshine that shone through the trees. I found some huge logs to burn and piled them by the fire ring, excited by the potential warmth and serenity of sitting around a fire for the second night in a row.
At some point, Dan was in my fridge stocking it with beers to get cold and I had trouble opening my back door. It was something that had happened before and usually a good attacking with some WD-40 and she’d be right again. Not this time. Really Astro? I pulled the access cover off to have a closer look and found that the door handle mechanism was loose and hitting a stop. Dan, the door expert having recently fixed two of his busted handles recently, insisted on having a look and after a bit of fiddling with a pair of pliers, he’d levered the biggest piece far enough that it wasn’t hitting the stop anymore. When I asked him to show me how he’d done it, he positioned the pliers again and explained, “I just grabbed it here and pulled it a bit,” Just as the words came out of his mouth, the mechanism broke completely and pieces fell into the door. We couldn’t believe it. Shit!
Not to worry, I had a McGuiver solution. With a screw from Dan and his fancy hands, we managed to reposition the spring onto the moving plate. After many attempts and much difficulty, using both our hands, a screwdriver a pair of pliers and my drill, we managed to screw everything back together and it worked perfectly. We walked away from it then, satisfied that it was fixed. Never a dull moment in van life!
Both tired from our afternoon of walking around and recent work on my van, we set the laptop up on Dan’s ceiling and trawled through my hard drive for something interesting to watch. Dan picked a show about the Universe, in particular, the possibility of asteroids hitting our planet and wiping out the human race. After half an hour, we weren’t impressed so we switched to the “North America” series that I’d watched a bit of before. In the end, it meant we didn’t leave the van the rest of the night. We were so comfortable in bed watching all sorts of animals in the wilderness that we were happy to leave the firewood I’d collected for some future lucky campers.
The moon shone brightly through the back doors as we went to sleep.